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Malaysia truly exemplifies melting pot of cultures

Malaysia and Taiwan have always enjoy friendly and substantive relations, particularly in the areas of trade, investment and other economic areas as well as in social and cultural fields including close people-to-people relations.

Abdul Rahim Bakri, President of Malaysian Friendship and Trade Centre (MFTC) remarked, "Our economic ties have gone a long way back and Taiwan has always been one of Malaysia's important trading partners."

"Both our economies are relatively free and similarly based on capitalistic model and coupled with our similar Asian background, there are hardly any cultural or language barriers that stand in the way in our trade and economic relationship. Thus, our bilateral trade and economic relationship can be described as strong and resilient and notwithstanding that, I believe that there is still potential for further expansion of the relationship," said Abdul Rahim Bakri.

For the whole year of 2001, Malaysia's two-way trade with Taiwan, for the first time, experienced a negative growth. However, this was not only experienced by Malaysia but also by most of Taiwan's trading partners due to the combination of factors including a general slowdown in the world economy, the September 11 attacks in the US, and a series of riveting typhoons hitting Taiwan that had impacted negatively on overall Taiwan's economy.

Next month will be a busy month for the MTFC. The Trade Division together with the Investment Division of the Centre are now busily preparing to receive a Malaysian Trade and Investment Mission to Taiwan headed by the Hon. Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry of Malaysia.

The mission will comprise business leaders from various industry sectors who will seek to foster bilateral trade and investment for both countries. The main program for the mission will be a seminar presentation on Malaysian business opportunities which aims to inform and create awareness among Taiwanese business community on Malaysia's trade and investment climate that are conducive as well as business opportunities that may arise for the Taiwan businessman.

There will also be a one-to-one business meetings for both Taiwanese and Malaysian businessmen to discuss JVs or any other businesses. This mission is indeed timely following the recent call by Taiwan's President who urged Taiwanese investors and businessmen to look "south" towards closer economic ties with Southeast Asian countries. Abdul Rahim Bakri said, "We certainly welcome his call and hope that the Taiwan government is serious in promoting the policy."

On the tourism side, Tourism Malaysia is planning "Tourism Roadshow" to be led by the Deputy Minister of Culture, Arts and Tourism that will cover three cities in Taiwan. As usual, the Tourism Division will also participate in the 20th International Travel Fair in Taipei from Nov 23-27 this year.

Taiwan has long been a destination for higher education for more than three decades for Malaysian students especially those who studied in the Chinese high schools in Malaysia. The Federation of Alumni Association of Taiwan Universities in Malaysia boasts of more than 30,000 members and they still maintain close contact with Taiwan. Currently, there are slightly over 3,000 Malaysian students studying in Taiwan's universities, junior colleges and technical institutes. This number is the average intake of Malaysian students studying in Taiwan.

As for Taiwanese students in Malaysian universities, there are a few Taiwanese students studying in Malaysian institutions of higher learning based on the record of the Centre's Visa Division in Taipei. These private colleges cater for degree courses in collaboration with foreign universities through various twinning programs.

Abdul Rahim Bakri said, "I wish to take this opportunity to highlight the Malaysian government's policy of promoting Malaysia as a center for educational excellence. We have now many foreign students including those from our neighboring Southeast Asian countries and also China, who are studying English on a short-term basis or enrolled in the various twinning programs as a result of our policy. As of last year, the foreign student population comprised 22 percent of the total student population of 210,000. We hope to achieve 25 percent for the foreign student component by 2005."

To further promote the policy, Malaysia have also relaxed visa requirements for foreign students in the private colleges especially those which have short term English courses and twinning programs with foreign universities such as those in the US and Australia.

In addition, parents of the foreign students area also welcomed and they too automatically can be issued with multiple-entry visas with six months' validity and can be renewed if the student has yet to complete the course.

"I wish to invite students from Taiwan to consider Malaysia as a possible destination for learning English and foreign degree courses. English is widely spoken in Malaysia and the cost of living is much lower besides providing a good quality of life," remarked Abdul Rahim Bakri.

Twinning programs also allow students to get internationally recognized degrees from foreign universities including established ones like Monash University at a much lower cost since students may only need to go overseas only in the final year. Some degree twining programs allow students to do the whole course completely in Malaysia without the need to go abroad.

In tourism, more than 250,000 Taiwanese traveled to Malaysia last year. Malaysia's tourism theme is "Malaysia Truly Asia" as it reflects appropriately the various aspects of the major cultures of Asia -- Malay, Chinese, and Indian and all found in one country. So to experience Asia, you don't have to travel over the whole continent, but just come to one single destination which is enchanting Malaysia.

Malaysia is indeed working very hard to attract more and more tourists from all over the world including Taiwan as this sector is a major foreign exchange earner for the Malaysian economy. Among the steps taken by Tourism Malaysia to promote Malaysia and attract tourists from all over the world are -- inviting production crew to use Malaysia as the backdrop of their movies; (examples of the movie include "The King and I" starring Jodie Foster and Chow Yuen Fat; and the current movie "The Touch" starring Michelle Yeoh who is also the producer), large scale familiarization tours for people in the travel and media industry; aggressive media campaigns; hosting of international events and conferences in Malaysia such as Formula One Races, etc..

Malaysia offers a potpourri of multi-cultural experiences, tropical rainforests, natural scenic beauty, affordable accommoda-tion, great shopping and a wide variety of delicious food. It is a great place to unwind and to soak in the many wonders that make Malaysia a microcosm of Asia, and all being offered at very competitive prices.
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